Why can't player races use their ships to ram?

[Thundercraft (OP)]

There really isn't much on the wiki about ramming. But in the How to identify invaders thread it was mentioned:

IIRC every non-player race can use their ships to ram.

I think it's rather unfair that any NPR can use ramming, but players can not. What's the deal? It's one thing that NPRs don't have to worry about fuel. But they all get to use a tactic that we can't? Just because?

It's going to be an attack of last resort for most players, probably only used if you have nothing to loose. Say, after a ship is out of missiles and there's no hope of or point in retreating. Besides, isn't the accuracy of the maneuver terrible? And you're probably going to loose the ship, so it's a very costly, one-shot deal.

Ramming is a valid, time-honored tactic. It was commonly used in antiquity, such as by the ancient Romans and Greeks. During WWII naval ships often rammed other vessels. And it was not only used in naval warfare, but in aerial warfare as a last-ditch tactic when all else had failed.

[SteelChicken]

Agreed.  On more than one occasion I wanted to fly a heavily damaged ship right into the enemies bridge.

TODAY IS A GOOD DAY TO DIE

[Thundercraft (OP)]

A thought occurred to me. If players do eventually get the option to use a ship to ram, I think it would be neat if the player could also issue a command just prior to the maneuver to "Evacuate". It would be similar to "Abandon Ship" in that it would launch life pods, but I imagine the commanding officer (and/or a couple of the bridge crew) must remain behind. The game effect might be that it launches most of the crew in life pods, but the weapons and such become unusable (due to lack of crew) and ramming would be one of the few options left.

[83athom]

To quote the Wiki.

There are reports about some of the more irresponsible alien races out there performing ramming attacks. Needless to say, humans and other civilized races are prohibited from such behavior.

Also;

I would build a ramming fleet and conquer the galaxy by simply headbutting the crap out of all the aliens.

[Sematary]

Somewhere on here, I don't remember where, Steve explains it in a post. Something about it just doesn't work for the engine.

[MarcAFK]

Presumably because you could just make seriously overpowered fighter sized ramming missiles and destroy much larger more expensive ships very cheaply.

[xeryon]

Probably more to do with the movement mechanics than anything else.  With 5 second turn increments your target will have changed position by the time you reach the initial interception point or something of the sort I suppose.

[linkxsc]

I know your own civvy freighters will defend themselves by ramming sometimes. Always good for a laugh.

Though, i dunno on existing ramming how damage is even calculated, or the toHit chance works.

[Steve Walmsley]

Not all NPRs will ram. It depends on their racial characteristics.

Reason for players not being allowed to ram is that it is an exploitable tactic. NPRs will only ram as a last resort (no weapons) and if their characteristics allow it.

[Vandermeer]

I'll admit that I have already heavily thought about how I would exploit such a mechanic.
Good thing the barkeep stopped handing out to me.

[GreatTuna]

I can crank up ways to exploit it even without thinking too hard.
Make 1mt ship that is nothing but engines, fuel, armor and shields, turn shields on, RAM EVERYTHING. 1000+ damage means nothing if it's absorbed by shields.

So, it's probably a good thing we're unable to ram.

[MarcAFK]

I ran test games where I put megaton sized conventionally armed ships up against various spoilers, ramming can easily bust through 100 armour layers without a problem

[Thundercraft (OP)]

I'll admit that I have already heavily thought about how I would exploit such a mechanic...

I can crank up ways to exploit it even without thinking too hard.

The definition of 'exploit' is to "make full use of and derive benefit from", such as to harness or utilize. There's nothing wrong with exploiting a good tactic. That's called "strategy" or using your head. However, it is something else entirely to exploit a bug, a loophole, or a broken game mechanic, particularly if it would hurt game balance.

To quote the Wiki...

I would build a ramming fleet and conquer the galaxy by simply headbutting the crap out of all the aliens.

Presumably because you could just make seriously overpowered fighter sized ramming missiles and destroy much larger more expensive ships very cheaply.

I ran test games where I put megaton sized conventionally armed ships up against various spoilers, ramming can easily bust through 100 armour layers without a problem

Reason for players not being allowed to ram is that it is an exploitable tactic. NPRs will only ram as a last resort (no weapons) and if their characteristics allow it.

That reason makes perfect sense. I'll admit: It makes me glad that players can't ram.

However, this is unfortunate as ramming used in moderation could make for wonderful flavor to roleplaying. I'm sure SteelChicken and myself aren't the only ones who find it at least a little appealing.

The real problem is not ramming itself. Rather, it's that ramming seems way too powerful and too exploitable. Maybe it should not do nearly so much damage? Maybe, just like NPRs will only ram as a last resort and if they have no weapons, the player could only issue a ram if they have taken a lot of damage (at least 85?) and originally had weapons, but have nothing left?

Or, maybe, player ship ramming could be possible, but left out of player control? Maybe there'd be a small and random chance for it to occur when certain conditions are met (i.e., damaged vessel and/or out of weapons/missiles)? Maybe even with a campaign option to turn ramming on or off?

This ramming discussion reminds me of the Suggestion: AMM doesn't need warhead thread:

It seems counter-intuitive to me that a missile getting hit by a 2. 5 ton object moving at 50000 kilometers per second relative to itself does not blow up, even if that 2. 5 ton object is just a chunk of metal with no explosives inside.  Therefore I suggest that for the purposes of shooting down missiles, your anti-missile missile needs 0 warhead.

This reasoning seems sound at first glance, particularly since KEIs or Kinetic Energy Interceptors are a real-life thing.

But, as someone pointed out, doing so would cause problems...

[This]...would promote smaller and even higher amounts of AMMs.

I would prefer going the other way around and giving ships with thicker armor 1 point of damage absorption so that AMMs don't scratch them.

Aurora doesn't need even smaller and more missiles going around IMHO.

And another pointed out that missiles probably do not actually collide with each other and the AMM just gets "close enough for the warhead to go off." Also:

...Trying to intercept something going 20000km/s while being relatively tiny is going to be very hard...

I think ship ramming could be viewed in a similar light. Granted, a ship is much larger than a missile. But it would still be difficult when moving at several thousand km/s, particularly since the target would try to avoid the impact. At 5000 km/s, a ship would pass 1 km of distance in 0.0002 seconds, assuming a stationary target. Humans can't react that fast. And with two ships approaching each other at 5000 km/s, that effectively becomes 10000 km/s.

Similarly, while pure kinetic damage would go up with increased speed, at the same time, the increase in speed should make it more difficult.

Perhaps, like AMMs, ship ramming shouldn't be about an actual impact, but getting close enough for an explosion? Engines do have an Explosion Chance, which is "the percentage the engine will blow up if damaged, causing a secondary explosion." Maybe when NPRs get desperate enough to "ram" they might self-destruct or rig the engines to overload when the computer senses a close proximity?

[GreatTuna]

Ugh.

I ran test games where I put megaton sized conventionally armed ships up against various spoilers, ramming can easily bust through 100 armour layers without a problem

I wanted to show you the logs of 2mt ship just absorbing all the damage by shields, but they're gone.

The definition of 'exploit' is to "make full use of and derive benefit from", such as to harness or utilize. There's nothing wrong with exploiting a good tactic. That's called "strategy" or using your head. However, it is something else entirely to exploit a bug, a loophole, or a broken game mechanic, particularly if it would hurt game balance.

It's not a good tactic, it's cheesing. A big 'I WIN' button no matter how you try to balance it.

The real problem is not ramming itself. Rather, it's that ramming seems way too powerful and too exploitable. Maybe it should not do nearly so much damage? Maybe, just like NPRs will only ram as a last resort and if they have no weapons, the player could only issue a ram if they have taken a lot of damage (at least 85?) and originally had weapons, but have nothing left?

Make 1mt ship with armor, shields, etc. and one gun, apply manual damage to gun, apply manual damage so it reaches 85, turn shields on, RAM EVERYTHING.
Damage reduction will make trying to use ramming as last-resort option pointless.
Besides, it's needless complexity for rarely-if-ever-used feature (that isn't implemented).

Or, maybe, player ship ramming could be possible, but left out of player control? Maybe there'd be a small and random chance for it to occur when certain conditions are met (i.e., damaged vessel and/or out of weapons/missiles)? Maybe even with a campaign option to turn ramming on or off?

Just no. No, I don't want my ships to suddenly ram enemy. Who would want their ships to suddenly ram enemy?

I think ship ramming could be viewed in a similar light. Granted, a ship is much larger than a missile. But it would still be difficult when moving at several thousand km/s, particularly since the target would try to avoid the impact.

That's why ramming works less on fast targets: they dodge. There will be attempts, but not always successful.

Maybe when NPRs get desperate enough to "ram" they might self-destruct or rig the engines to overload when the computer senses a close proximity?

Maybe not? Exploding engines tend to take down ships they're placed on, not nearby targets. And, unlike missiles, ships have a lot of armor, and sometimes shields.

[MarcAFK]

I'm thinking if ramming were balanced it should basically become a case where armour itself becomes a weapon and is only applied to amour, or maybe only does minimal damage through the breech.
The chance of ramming should be based on speed difference, only a significantly faster ship should be able to ram somewhat like boarding action.
Ramming obviously should favour the heavier ship( maybe this is debatable, but I think it is obvious), so....
Perhaps randomly pick a point on the attacking ships armour to use for damage calculation, a blunt pyramid is generated based on the armour depth of the defending vessel.
Imagine a ship with 5 layers ramming one with 3 layers, the "impact zone" will be a pyramid 3 wide at the tip, 5 layers deep so 35 armour in total is removed from the attacking ship ( or perhaps more advanced armours have a slight chance of partially surviving the impact).
The defender then takes 35 damage, applied as a cone of the same dimensions, so 11 damage to first layer, 9 to next layer, 7 to the next layer, then finally 8 damage gets through to the ship.
Very underwhelming but perhaps accurate unless you want to take into account actual impact energy, which would of course be based on impact speed and would rightly be extremely high damage.
Maybe a simple multiplier, twice the damage if attacker is twice as fast?
It's not looking good for the idea that a heavily damaged ship could ram as a measure of last resort, but really if a ship has severe armour damage and isn't particularly fast of course it wouldn't really be able to ram.
Then again interception speed and distance needs to be taken into account anyway, a ship can't ram unless it's going to intercept within the next 5 second intercept.